Media Matters points out another ridiculous study by the so-called watchdogs at the Media Research Center:
Since Election Day, network reporters branded politicians or groups as "conservative" 395 times, compared to 59 "liberal" labels, a greater than six-to-one disparity... MRC analysts used the Nexis database to examine each use of "liberal" and "conservative" on ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news programs from November 3 through May 2. We rejected labels that weren' political (a "conservative investment") or outside the U.S. context (all those labels of Pope Benedict XVI, for example). We also excluded labels applied by a news source rather than the network reporter.
As Media Matters notes, this methodology is screamingly incoherent:
The basic premise of this "study" -- that if there are more mentions of the word "conservative" than the word "liberal" in a given period, then the news must be "biased" against conservatives -- is so ridiculous that a fourth-grader could pierce its logic.
If precisely the same number of actual conservatives and liberals had been discussed in the news, and conservatives had been identified as such while liberals hadn't, the MRC might have a legitimate gripe (though even this criticism would presume, as the MRC seems to, that "conservative" and "liberal" are inherently derogatory terms). But the real reason there are more mentions of "conservatives" than "liberals" is obvious: there has been more news about conservatives.
An additional reason to believe that MRC's "study" is wrong: when Geoffrey Nunberg, a Stanford linguist, checked the claim that conservatives are labelled as such more often than liberals in a methodologically sound fashion, he found that liberals were labeled as such more often than conservatives, not less.
MM also flags a separate MRC study that illustrates the deep relativism of the contemporary conservative movement. It states:
This study of 125 news stories on Social Security between Nov. 15, 2004, and March 15, 2005, found four out of the five major networks biased toward liberal talking points. CBS and CNN had almost three times as many liberal stories as conservative. Overall, liberal talking points outweighed conservative ones by a margin of 2 to 1. Reporters favored extreme examples that made liberal points, while failing to explain key economic terms and concepts that would inform the debate.
But as MM argues:
A look at the supporting evidence shows the presumption that drives this "study" is the same that underlies virtually all of the MRC's work: Any news story not dominated by unadulterated Republican spin is, by definition, a case of "liberal bias."
If this is your starting point, it is not hard to find examples that support your pre-determined conclusion. If its "study" of Social Security coverage is any indication, the MRC apparently believes that even any fact that does not coincide with Republican spin constitutes a "liberal talking point" and proof of "bias."
For instance, in the study, MRC coded any mention of the transition costs of President Bush's plan for private investment accounts as a "liberal talking point." The flip side of this contention is that, according to the MRC, when a news organization fails to report Republican spin as fact, it has shown bias. For instance, the report cited the following as an alleged example of bias: "On Feb. 12's 'Evening News,' CBS's Russ Mitchell said, 'Mr. Bush said he's open to any good idea to fix a system he claims is heading for bankruptcy' (emphasis added)." CBS' attribution of the bankruptcy argument as a claim of Bush's and not as simple fact, according to the MRC, shows CBS' bias. Of course, the idea that Social Security will be "bankrupt" is not merely a point of contention, it is highly misleading -- even under the pessimistic projections of the Social Security trustees, the system will not go broke (it will be able to pay, at a minimum, between 70 and 80 percent of promised benefits, even if nothing is done to change it). Anything less than uncritical Republican spin, even when that spin is clearly misleading, constitutes "liberal bias" as far as the MRC is concerned.
The MRC looked for conservative arguments in favor of Social Security privatization, then claimed that the absence of those arguments from news reports constitutes bias. The study quoted conservative activist Stephen Moore, an advocate of privatization, to contend that "personal accounts would reduce the burden on the government and eventually create surpluses rather than more debt. But in unbalanced stories, this point was absent." In fact, even the Bush administration has declined to endorse this claim; the administration has admitted that private accounts will do nothing to address Social Security's long-term solvency. Moore is apparently assuming spectacular future stock market gains to make his prediction. But even if you agree with Moore, his is a highly contested, speculative argument. The MRC's claim that not including it in a news report makes that report "unbalanced" exposes the assumptions that make its "study" so absurd.
(For more, see this Spinsanity column on FAIR and MRC.)
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